I would say the thrust was very small maybe enough to compensate for the inlet drag, basically a ramjet where the exhaust gasses were heated by a radiator, the best exponent of the meredith effect also had the most advance inlet designI suppose you could look at it that way. The physicists among us may take umbrage, as it isn't an exact analogy, but yes air gets rammed in the front, it acquires additional energy thru heating, and is ejected at higher velocity thru the tailpipe. And it doesn't acquire useful thrust until the ram velocity achieves a certain threshold.